Weymouth man charged with selling drugs to undercover cops

A Weymouth man already facing charges that he was the ringleader of a massive prescription drug counterfeiting operation on the South Shore has been arrested again, this time for allegedly selling oxycodone to undercover Transit Police.

The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA

Writer

Posted Mar. 28, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Mar 28, 2013 at 9:07 PM

Posted Mar. 28, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Mar 28, 2013 at 9:07 PM

BOSTON

» Social News

A Weymouth man already facing charges that he was the ringleader of a massive prescription drug counterfeiting operation on the South Shore has been arrested again, this time for allegedly selling oxycodone to undercover Transit Police.

Simmons was scheduled to be arraigned Thursday on the new drug charges.

A Plymouth County grand jury earlier this month handed up 42 drug-related indictments against Simmons, a former Hull resident, stemming from a raid in late 2011 and the arrest of more than 60 people.

Police reports filed in district courts in late 2011 described Simmons as one of the ringleaders of a counterfeiting operation that was printing out fake prescriptions on a stolen prescription pad and using them to get drugs, particularly oxycodone, from South Shore pharmacies. Investigators said Simmons would give the fake prescriptions to runners who would fill them at area pharmacies and turn the drugs over to him in exchange for cash or a share of the drugs.

On the morning of Dec. 13, 2011, more than 200 law enforcement officers fanned out across 15 cities and towns in Norfolk and Plymouth counties in search of about 70 people allegedly tied to the operation. By the end of the day, Plymouth County prosecutors reported that 63 people had been arrested.

Simmons, however, was not among them. Though he had been arrested in Norwell the previous day in an unrelated incident and would later face drug possession charges, he was never charged in connection with the prescription-faking operation.

But that didn’t stop him from talking about his involvement. In a July 2012 interview with The Patriot Ledger, Simmons acknowledged leading the operation in its earliest stages, but said he was in a “forced situation” and that the ring had grown rapidly under new leadership.

“It’s more than one person,” he said. “It’s a club. It’s a region.”

The interview, held in The Patriot Ledger newsroom, was prompted by a June 2012 article detailing how Simmons’ drug addiction and involvement in the prescription-fraud ring was weighing on his family, especially his teenage daughter, Jamie Lee Simmons.

A few days before the story ran, Simmons’ oldest daughter, 31-year-old Jessica Simmons, died of an overdose in a Boston hospital.